Tagged social media

Is your brand getting great marketing results from Pinterest?
Check out these handy Pinterest marketing resources to do even better.

Pinterest is a fantastic marketing tool that is under-utilized by countless brands. By now, it’s likely that you at least have a brand account setup on Pinterest for your business, but maybe it’s just sitting there, just a handful of pins on a board or two, quietly waiting for something to happen. But what if you spent just a little more time on Pinterest?

Would you be surprised if I told you that Pinterest can be a huge driver of highly-engaged traffic to your website? Would you be happy to achieve an SEO boost? Would you like to see conversion rates on your site go up?

Pinterest can deliver all those things and more. As a visually-oriented social network, highly focused on lifestyle categories, Pinterest can also have a huge impact on your brand position. There are a lot of reasons to kick up your Pinterest activity, and fortunately, there are also a ton of great Pinterest marketing resources out there you can use to crank up your Pinterest performance in almost no time. Here are some of the best articles and resources I’ve found recently that you can use to leverage this powerful marketing opportunity:

It’s always helpful to understand the current state of a social network if you’re going to get the most out of your time there. This handy list of important stats compiled by the folks at Business 2 Community highlights some of the most current and interesting facts about Pinterest. Check out this article.

Social Media Examiner is a wealth of information, and this podcast definitely delivers some extremely valuable tips. Pinterest is a massive driver of website traffic, and this podcast/article covers a selection of great tips on how to structure your pins for maximum engagement. Check out this article.

If your website doesn’t have a functional and effective social media sharing tool on it, check out AddThis. They have several valuable articles in their knowledge base, such as this one that features a bunch of tips for setting up your Pinterest profile, setting up ‘rich pins’, and properly integrating ‘Pin It’ buttons throughout your website. Check out this article.

Not only does Pinterest drive a ton of traffic, but that traffic is extremely engaged and much more likely to convert on ecommerce sites. Shopify has crafted a beautiful and informative infographic detailing some significant points for marketers managing ecommerce sites. Check out this article.

Just because you may not be selling a physical product or marketing a lifestyle brand doesn’t mean you can’t capitalize on Pinterest. Bloggers can, too. Elna Cain produced this great article at Blogging Wizard highlighting some great tips for generating traffic to your blog using Pinterest. Check out this article.

So don’t wait. Pinterest is ready and waiting to start pouring traffic in to your website. Just be sure to follow solid tips like these and you’ll be reaping the benefits soon enough. If you’re already seeing gains from using Pinterest for your brand, why not jump in to the comments here and let me know your best Pinterest tips. I’d love to hear them!

You may have all the technology and expertise in the world at your disposal, but do you have this crucial element to SEO, content and social media success?

Do you have a fantastic SEO platform? A beautiful piece of software, with all the data dots connected, and all the keyword bells and social media whistles that you could ever ask for? If your brand has a culture that is forward-thinking enough to recognize how crucial a tool like this is to the success of your digital marketing, then I hope the answer is yes.

But that’s not the only thing that demands your precious marketing dollars. Are you promoting your posts to precision-targeted audiences on Facebook? Gaining a following on Twitter by advertising your best stuff to key influencers? Utilizing all the many paid search tools to drive traffic to your brilliant content?

All these magnificent things are not cheap, but they are certainly worth it . . . IF you’ve also made another important little investment. An investment in great people.

Don’t underestimate what it takes to win in SEO, Social, & Content Marketing

It’s no secret that the biggest bottleneck in content marketing (and by extension, SEO and social) is TIME. It takes a huge amount of time to develop truly great content that delivers value, ranks in search, and resonates throughout social media. This is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that brands hit when developing their content marketing strategies and social plans. Most brands just don’t have enough people to actually execute what is needed to outpace competition and gain more ground in their markets.

I mean, on their own each thing you do for digital content doesn’t seem very daunting, and this is part of the perception that makes content ‘seem’ easier than it actually is. Seriously, how long does it take to write a 500 word blog post? But what about 4 or 5 of them? Maybe add a whitepaper in there, too? Throw together a handful of tweets every day? A few Facebook posts? Couple of things for LinkedIn? Pic for Instagram? And let’s not forget the time needed to crush it on YouTube. It adds up fast.

But that’s just reality, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t just ‘buy’ time, can you?

Yeah, actually, you can buy time.

What if I told you for the low, low price of a single person’s salary, you could flat-out BUY dozens more hours every week? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing when you hire people. Every person you bring on is paying your brand back with their time. All of it. Every day.

Hiring great people gives you their time, their expertise, and their knowledge to execute your strategies and tactics. Without great people to action those ideas and plans, they’re nothing more than decorations on Powerpoint slides.

1+1 = 2, mostly. Sometimes it’s 3. Possibly 4?

This is really basic math. When you go from one content writer to two, that’s instantly doubling the amount of content you can churn out. That’s two times the amount of original, fresh, relevant and valuable content for your brand to rank in search and share in social.

Yeah, it’s that simple, and it scales in huge ways. Once those two writers begin to develop synergies, sharing valuable research, conducting brainstorming sessions, etc, you’ll find that your content team becomes more than just the sum of its parts. They now have the support they need to do more than they could on their own.

Investing in people pays the biggest dividends of any dollar you spend in SEO, social, and content. People give you the ability to action what you’ve been told by all the data that you have in your analytics tools and platforms, and put in motion all the advice coming from your agencies and consultants. Great people and their time are the best things you can buy for your brand.

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss how Pinterest and its search mechanics combine with other key aspects of the platform to bring power to digital marketers, and a recent article about how marketing agencies should be taking a good hard look at software as a competitive differentiator.

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss how marketers can get better understanding of their SEM efforts by mapping actions and events in their reporting and finding true correlation and causation, and explore why some brands have made the puzzling decision to ‘go dark’ on social media and shift to an advertising-only model.

In this episode, Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss some of the latest news in social cause marketing, including Dove’s latest and greatest campaign, along with the dangers of not being prepared for what comes with social cause marketing. Also, we take a look at what it means to have an ‘optimized’ personal digital brand, and how you can start optimizing your own digital presence.

In this episode Jonathan Barrick and Josh Muirhead discuss how the net neutrality ruling by the FCC was completely dwarfed on social media by a pair of llamas and debate over the colour of a dress, and how the content resources we rely on evolve over time along with our own approaches to marketing.

I am very excited to announce the launch of the Marketing Doubleshot podcast! Hosted by myself and my cohort, Josh Muirhead, the Marketing Doubleshot is our new idea exchange forum where we discuss a pair of topics that we feel are important in the world of digital marketing. The format is simple and straightforward; two hosts, two topics, and each podcast will be an easily-digestable 20-minutes. We certainly hope you enjoy!

No time for content marketing? It might not be quite as demanding as you think.

Businesses of all sizes are jumping on content marketing with gusto, but unfortunately many are lacking a logical and sensible plan to manage the demands that it places on an organization. It’s extraordinarily common for brands to sprint right off the start and get as much content out there as fast as possible, and then burn out within months when they create a pace that they can’t possibly maintain.

Fortunately, there are many simple ways that brands can ease the pressure off their content marketing demands. Here are 5 things you can start to incorporate today to your content plan to make it more manageable, and more effective.

1) Break it down in to manageable pieces – One of the most daunting aspects of content marketing is the time it takes. Often, brands look to others who are doing well with content marketing and think “How do they do it?”. Well, the simple answer is that the savvy ones do it with a structured content schedule. They plan out how much content they are going to put out there according to a manageable timeline, factoring in what’s happening inside the company, out in the industry, and how they can spread out their content on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis to get the most out of what they have, and not overreach their resources.

Simply Put: Plan out how much activity you can manage on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and then actually throw it in to your calendar so you know what’s needed for each channel, and when.

2) Focus on the core platforms – Ah yes, the problem of trying to be everywhere. While it’s an admirable pursuit, it rarely works. Limited time and limited resources translate in to the need to pick the platforms and social networks that work best for your brand and your audience. Evaluate your social networks and content platforms based on the size of your audience (both existing and potential), where you’re achieving (or stand to achieve) the most engagement, and which ones are poised for the most significant growth.

Simply Put: Be where your audience is, and where you can deliver the most impact.

3) Curate from complementary sources – Competitors abound in the digital space, but so do allies. The fact that there IS so much content being produced by brands is often disheartening for those brands struggling to break through and gain traction, but it can also be a huge advantage if you approach it right. Look for complementary brands that are delivering great content. These are brands that aren’t competitors to your business, but are still relevant to your audience. These complementary brands are great sources of content that you can share, relieving some pressure off your resources to create original stuff, but still delivering solid value to your audiences.

4) Revisit & Refresh – Struggling for blog post ideas? Go back to your archives. Look for those posts that talk about currently relevant topics, but are maybe a bit out of date. These can be the catalyst for new posts that highlight just how things have changed for your audience. Explaining why things are the way they are can be of great interest to engaged communities, and often can give insights in to where things are headed. Use past posts to talk about how much better things are now due to new tech, product features or services. How have concepts and ideas evolved over time? While these may not be of interest to your ENTIRE audience, don’t underestimate the power of delivering thoughtful retrospective posts to those that are interested.

Simply Put: Look back through your archives for content that can be updated and refreshed with a new perspective.

5) Get Help: You’re not alone. Every organization has hidden resources that can be unlocked to assist with the content marketing effort. Maybe they are part of the sales team, engineering, customer service, or the C-suite, but they are there, and they know stuff that matters to your audience. Engaging those resources to deliver the raw materials you can use to deliver new and valuable content to your audience can bolster your efforts in ways you didn’t see before. Also, don’t forget that guest bloggers are often used to great success. Put out a call to bloggers in your community, and start a discussion with them on what they might bring to the table. Set out some guidelines, and give it a try. User-generated content carries a lot of weight.

So as you can see, these aren’t lofty or unrealistic options for most brands. It simply comes from a different way of looking at what you’re doing, where and when it is happening, and how you can get more impact and better results with whatever resources you’ve got. Content marketing is powerful, no doubt. But if you approach it with a plan, focus your efforts, and incorporate every advantage you can, it doesn’t have to be quite so demanding. Hope you find these tips useful!

What tips do you have for making content marketing more manageable and less demanding?

It’s certainly no secret that I have a passion for the digital space, and all it entails. I see digital (web, internet, online, or whatever you want to call it) as a marketing battleground of equal or greater importance to any other that exists. We humans spend a huge amount of time with our faces glued to screens of various sizes; consuming, sharing, interacting, engaging, ranting, raving, recommending, and questioning. For a business to deny this fact simply ensures its demise, be it fast or slow.

Beyond that, however, advancements in digital over the last several years have enabled us to forge relationships between businesses and customers that were at the very least highly improbable, if not impossible. What used to take place within the confines of a businesses walls, or in the isolation of a one-to-one phone call, now takes place online, across multiple social channels, in full view of the world. Now, you can interact with a business online as if they were an old friend, and businesses in turn can in turn take advantage of word-of-mouth on an unprecedented scale. Local businesses can have global impact, and global brands have the ability to relate to customers on a local level. Lines have blurred, and in my opinion, it’s better for everyone.

Over the last several years, my career in marketing for an industrial B2B equipment manufacturer has evolved dramatically. Way back in the distant year of 2003, we used to play almost entirely in traditional media. Print ads in trade mags, directories and guidebooks, trade shows, etc. The web was typically just a supporting piece. An online catalog, in essence. Over time though, we saw a huge shift over to digital as the main resource for anyone researching potential suppliers like us. Being findable online was no longer an option, even for well-established B2B brands. You had to be present, and your presence had to be awesome enough to hit page 1 of Google’s results.

Then social media came along, and things changed again. Your website is now just one touchpoint in the digital space. Your blog, YouTube channel, LinkedIn presence, Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc, are all now weighed and measured against everyone else’s, and your relevance is calculated by factors out of your control. Namely, Google’s algorithm and the opinions of the people your customers talk to. Your brand isn’t what YOU say it is, it’s what THEY say it is.

While initially apprehensive on how an industrial manufacturer could really capitalize on these new channels, we made the decision to go for it in 2010, and the benefits of it became apparent almost immediately. The reasons were pretty obvious, even in the early stages of businesses using social media and content marketing. Who would read an ad when you could read a blog article that actually helps you solve a problem? Who pulls out a 2000 page directory when Google sorts the most relevant businesses for you? How would your business stack up if you’re the one who willingly helped a customer BEFORE they were ready to buy? Hmm…. I wonder.

We interwove social actions and content marketing in to our existing marketing efforts. We integrated social tools in to the website, published more content of a variety of types, expanded our presence at industry events, forged stronger relationships with customers, and connected with the community.

Fast forward to 2014. Content marketing, inbound marketing, and social marketing now play a huge role for almost every business, even industrial B2B niche brands. It doesn’t matter if you sell a $10 widget or a $1 million piece of machinery, customers want to know that you’re the most relevant. Period. Content marketing accomplishes this, but only if done right. The question each business now faces is this; What is our ‘right way’ to do content marketing?

Which brings me to the entire reason for this post; I’m moving on. I’m now going to be completely immersed in the world of content, social, and inbound marketing. I’ve accepted a gig as a marketing strategist and content architect at gShift, a company that has developed an incredible software tool that not only enables businesses to compile all their web presence stats in one powerful dashboard, but also enables them to overcome many of the obstacles currently plaguing marketers in the digital space. Struggling with the ‘not provided’ situation Google has thrust on you? gShift’s software can help. Under pressure to prove impact and ROI from your content marketing? gShift’s software can help. Want to know how your web presence stacks up against your mortal enemies? gShift’s software can help.

I’m pumped to begin this new challenge and be a member of the team that is at the forefront of developing the tools and techniques that businesses use to connect more effectively with their customers, become more findable online, and build a thriving brand. I believe that businesses who approach content marketing in the right way, and truly understand the impact that they can have in their industry by changing their mindset to deliver real value in their marketing, will be the ones that customers desire to do business with above all others. That’s the goal, and it’s an admirable one.

Molson Canadian has always been an iconic brand up here north of the 49th. The now legendary “I AM CANADIAN” rant is ingrained in our national heritage as ‘much more than a commercial’. It was a rallying cry for Canucks around the world to raise a glass and toast to what a freakin’ awesome place Canada is.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU]

True to form, Molson has produced a brilliant collection of inspiring ‘GO TEAM’ graphics during the 2014 Winter OIympic games in Sochi. They’ve been saturating my Twitter feed every day, and it makes me smile. Molson is doing a fantastic job of showcasing Canadian pride, and having a great time owning each and every stereotype that most Canadians are proud to admit are actually quite true.

Here’s some of the top pics they’ve sent out so far…

Their timing is perfect, their captions brilliant, their graphics spectacular. It’s no wonder these are easily some of the most-shared images from any brand participating in Olympic marketing. Nicely done, Molson Canadian. You’ve once again assured your place as one of the definitive Canadian brands. Kudos, and I can’t wait to see what you’ve got in the hopper for when Canada inevitably wins the last gold of the games!